Freemanart Consultancy Art Authentication and Attribution: French Barbizon School Art and Paintings of Fontainbleau

"We should all realise that we can only talk about the bad forgeries, the ones that have been detected;

the good ones are still hanging on the walls."

Theodore Rousseau

The Freemanart
Consultancy's vast international experience in directing art authentication and artist attribution investigations, includes all fine art genres, artists and
periods of art history. We have expertise and specialists who are expert on the works of the Barbizon School artists and sadly there are plenty of fakes and forgeries claiming to be Barbizon school for us to investigate.

For over 42
years we have been professionally conducting academic and forensic
investigations into the authenticity or otherwise of works of art originating from the true Barbizon school, for private and corporate clients
around the world. Identifying those which are by followers, copyists, or those paintings which are just plain fakes pretending to be by artists of L'École de Barbizon,

Some 35 miles to the south of Paris lies the town of Barbizon and around it, the Forest of Fontainbleau. Once the hunting ground of kings, it soon drew the attention of history making artists who embraced their native landscape amongst its shadows. Artists such as
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Claude Monet and that started the ball rolling:

It was here in Barbizon that, following in their footsteps, the French artists Théodore Rousseau, Jean-François
Millet and Charles-François Daubigny founded a movement called - L'École de Barbizon, or the Barbizon school. And soon the list of artistic names painting here in and around Fontainbleau became huge.

This stormy landscape to the right by Théodore Rousseau, is typical of his dark and sombre painting style and many artists followed suit.

Charles Daubigny soleil-couchant-sur-loise

It doesn't take much to copy the famous and valuable signature of Theodor Rousseau and add it to any old unsigned work by a lesser known artist. A dark landscape by anyone just painting in the style of the man will do nicely and it is one of the most common art fraud attempts we see. Signature forgery.

But painting in this particular impressionistic style is not that difficult either and art fraud doesn't have to be in the hundreds of thousands to tsake the risks involved, it also works very well for the fakers and crooked art dealers in the thousands and even hundreds!

Henri Joseph Harpignies Vue d'un village

Félix Ziem (1821-1911).

"Cerf dans la forêt de Fontainebleau".

Authentification de l'école Barbizon

Authenticating Barbizon Art

Diaz de la Pena

Constant Troyon

Charles Jean Georget - Deer at Eventide Fontainbleau

Other Barbizon and Fontainbleau painters that associated themselves with the Barbizon Fontainbleau region were:

The Freemanart Consultancy can assist you with all authentication issues concerning Barbizon School works of art and its associated artists working in or around Fontainbleau. Including pre purchase, due diligence and duty of care matters, the identification of fakes and forgeries and the processiong of authentification and attributions which are fully internationally recognised and underpinned.

We prefer to conduct an initial professional pre authentication assesment for clients first, to establish and balance the viability of continuance with any academic or forensic art authentication investigation before you begin.